Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters: Hot Trends Case Study

One of the basic pieces of advice that is repeated to newcomers to online marketing by seasoned veterans is to “find a great niche.” Unfortunately, this piece of advice causes many newcomers to become quickly frustrated. The reason that they get frustrated is that when they start researching niches, it seems like each one that they come across is too saturated with competitors.

While it is true that it can be extremely difficult to break into an established niche (especially if you are on a limited budget), this doesn’t mean that there aren’t any opportunities left. Thanks to the fact that we live in a fast paced world, the latest trends are creating new opportunities all of the time.

Instead of just giving you generic advice, I thought it would be more helpful to provide you with an actual case study from my recent personal experience.

Last Wednesday, I took a break mid-morning to eat a snack. As I was eating, I turned on the TV and was flipping through the stations when I heard a story on the Fox Business Channel about a list that had just been released by Toys R Us with the hottest toys for the 2009 holiday season. Although I only caught the end of the story, I decided to look up the list online.

Although there are 15 top toys on the list (and 36 overall), it was clear from all of the coverage related to the list that the projected top seller for this season is Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters.

After reading several stories about how popular these toys have already become, I did a little research with the Google Insights for Search tool. I found several popular, generic keywords related to this toy, and checked to see if any of them were available as domain names. Although most were taken, I did find one that was available, PetHamsterToy.com, and registered it through GoDaddy for $7.17 using coupon code yhkw105a.

Note: As I was writing this post, I put Pet Hamster Toy into the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. While Pet Hamster Toy had more momentum according to the Google Insights for Search tool, I discovered that Pet Hamster Toys (plural) already had some existing traffic (73 Exact Match Global Monthly Searches). I checked GoDaddy, and when I discovered that PetHamsterToys.com was still unregistered, I registered it and forwarded it to PetHamsterToy.com.

Because I use WP Hive, I was able to have WordPress installed on the domain within minutes after registering it. From there, I wrote the home page (which I later deep-linked to the product pages) and added two videos to it. After that, I created three product pages (Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters, Houses and Accessories) with pictures and links to the Amazon product pages, as well as short descriptions that I wrote for each product. I also added a contact form and privacy page to the website. To finish things off, I put a picture in the sidebar, as well as a targeted Amazon product links skyscraper.

Once the website was finished, I wrote an article titled “Zhu Zhu Hamsters are 2009′s Hottest Toy.” I then hired someone from DigitalPoint to submit the article to several article directories for me. All in all, completing all of these tasks took less than two hours.

So, now that you have seen how you can make your own website like this, you’re probably wondering if anyone has visited it. And I’m happy to say the answer to your question is yes. Although this post was written earlier this week on Monday, 9/28, in four days the website had generated these statistics:

from these referral sources:

While 24 visitors is obviously not a flood of traffic, there are two statistics that I am quite pleased about. First, of the twenty-four, three were direct visitors. While I obviously want to generate as much search engine traffic is possible, it’s always a good sign when you are able to secure a generic keyword domain that people are typing directly into their URL bar.

Second, of these 24 visitors, one has already resulted in a sale. While traffic is great, the conversion rate is what really matters, and I’m pretty pleased with 1 out of 24.

If you have been thinking that all of the opportunities to find a niche are already gone or over-saturated, it’s time to change your thinking. By just keeping an eye on hot trends, I was able to spend less than $20 and two hours on a site that I anticipate will continue to increase its traffic and revenue.

Ending Note: Normally, I would let a site like this grow organically and not spend any additional time on it, but because I think it could make for an interesting follow up post, I will most likely spend some time gathering some additional data and monitoring the sites progress in greater detail so that I can write another post during the next one to two months.